American-British invasion of Iraq might start in October, but Guardian says military commanders on both sides of the Atlantic are privately expressing deep unease about such plans. Washington Post reports many senior U.S. military officers contend that President Saddam Hussein poses no immediate threat and that the United States should continue its policy of containment. Also, both a former Oil-For-Food Coordinator and a former UN Chief Weapons Inspector in Iraq believe the West should not go to war, especially given likely profound effects on U.S. economy the New York Time reports on.
However, it does not look like the possible campaign lacks planning: "One oil strategist in London noted that United States government acquisitions for the reserve were accounting for more than half of the growth in demand for oil this year. With a capacity of 700 million barrels, the reserve could be used to disperse 4.2 million barrels of oil a day to jittery markets — more than enough to make up for the 1 million barrels a day of Iraqi crude lost because of military operations," which still won't help: "'Afghanistan is in turmoil, the Middle East is in flames, and you want to open a third front in the region? That would truly turn into a war of civilizations,' said a member of the Kuwaiti royal family in close consultation with Washington."
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia is teetering on the brink of collapse, fuelling Foreign Office fears of an extremist takeover of one of the West's key allies in the war on terror, Guardian says: "Unrest in the east of the country rapidly escalated into nationwide protests against the royal family that were brutally suppressed by the police. [...] The Foreign Office believes that the failure of Abdullah's recent Middle East peace plan could have terminally undermined his position. [...] British-based Saudi dissident Dr Saad al-Fagih said: 'There is now an undeclared war between the factions in the Saudi royal family.'"
"Saudi Arabia is everybody's nightmare. People are deathly afraid of any military campaign spreading to Saudi Arabia. That country contains one half of the spare production capacity in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries," New York Times says.
In other news, a Man Hijacks Al-Qaida Web Site - " but the FBI stumbles around for a week trying to find somebody with the technical abilities to take advantage of the site. By then, the site's militant Islamic visitors had discovered the ruse." Via Metafilter.
Already, nervs are laying blank: "Looking up stuff on the Internet - everybody has freedom to do that" - but in Florida, a Briton surfing bomb websites got arrested.
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